David Lee Roth has released a new song entitled “Pointing at the Moon.”
You can hear the track below. The gentle ballad finds the longtime Van Halen frontman backed only by piano and acoustic guitar. The song’s YouTube page doesn’t offer musician credits or any other information about its recording.
It’s the first new music Roth has released since pairing five previously unreleased songs with a web comic named The Roth Project in November of 2020. Guitarist John 5, who appeared on those tracks, told UCR there’s more unheard music from their time together in Roth’s vault.
“There’s a song, I’ll tell you, called ‘Nothing Could Have Stopped Us,'” he explained in August 2021. “This song is so great, and I just literally will beg Dave and Dave’s team to release this song. “Cause it’s about Van Halen, and it’s so good. I mean, it’s so fucking good. And I just wish he would release it.”
Roth announced his retirement in October 2021, saying he would end his career with a series of January 2022 shows in Las Vegas. However, after initially canceling the first two dates due to COVID-related concerns, he pulled the plug on the entire residency. “It’s not about me anymore,” he explained to Fox News at the time. “When the benefits for Kentucky, Colorado and Farm Aid kick in, call me.”
But after former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted revealed in April 2022 that he had engaged in conversations with Roth and Alex Van Halen about an Eddie Van Halen tribute tour, the singer seemed to indicate that he would be interested in participating. “I wrote the songs. … I was the one who named the band,” he told Fox News. “I’m only in the middle of my first retirement.”
David Lee Roth Yearly Photos